Paul Gascoigne is still the most talented English footballer currently playing, but his place in Glenn Hoddle's World Cup 22 is by no means assured. Who's to blame for that, then? Poor form? Low quality opposition in Scotland? Debilitating injuries? Not according to Gazza. The biggest problem I've had in my career is the press.

HE'S NEVER happier than when he's with kids, but that's not surprising I still think I'm a kid myself, he says. That's my trouble. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the kids from his local school, Brighton Avenue, the place where he learned to juggle a ball about, are obviously wide-eyed with wonder at meeting Paul Gascoigne today. He's gone back to give them a bit of a thrill and he's certainly doing that just by being there. But the suspicion is that Gazza's getting even more out of this meeting than the little ‘uns are. Kids, after all, think the most important thing about England's most famous and most naturally-gifted - footballer is that he's, well, England's most naturally gifted footballer. They don't care about where Gascoigne's been, who he's been there with and how much he's had to drink while he's been doing it. They, unlike the papers he hates so much, aren't interested in prying:

"Where I live is where I choose to live and I don't think that's got anything to do with anybody else, he responds spikily when asked rather innocuously about where he's been putting his head down since his £3.5 million move from Rangers to Middlesbrough. But don't worry about it. The press will get to know where I live anyway, it's not a problem. He pauses. It's nice of you to care where I want to live, though." Irony is a new weapon added to Gascoigne's armoury against the press, but he's clearly relishing using it. Any trick to tell them how much he hates them is welcome. Well, not Chris Evans-style media, of course, but the scum-sucking tabloid types. They're the ones who make his blood boil.

"I can't do anything cos there are bastards in the press who I can't fucking stand because they don't give me a life and follow me everywhere I go. You want an example? Right. Yesterday I go to see my son who I haven't seen for about a week or so. As soon as I come out the house there's a photographer there and a press guy, so what do you want me to do? I go down the local pub and have a Perrier water, but it comes out that I'm having a gin and tonic. If I go to a pub, I've been in a nightclub. If I come home at nine o'clock at night, I've been out all night till nine o'clock the next morning. At the end of the day they don't give me a life, so I just try to keep things as low-key as I can." To be fair to the fellow no wonder they give him the ache:

"The biggest problem in my career hasn't been the injuries. I've come back from so many of them that I know I've got the will power to get over anything. The hardest thing has been surviving you lot. It's amazing I've managed